High on the eastern slope of Mauna Kea, blustery trades clear the air of the lingering mists rising from the earth, freshly quenched by a late January storm. The sea of kikuyu grass is unbroken but for the occasional koa snag. For decades, the land was insulted by the grazing of thousands of sheep and cattle. Now, it can no longer support even the few dozen head of cattle that have escaped regular round-ups over the last year. Even so, what cattle remain are enough to jeopardize any young koa keiki that may sprout from the bank of seeds buried in the ground.
Among the old, dying koa stands a handful of trees that could almost be described as robust. Aglow with lush, green foliage and thick trunks, these koa inspire conservationists who hope, in time, their numbers will multiply and thereby lay the foundation for the return of a native forest.
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which owns this land, has decided to let the pasture leases that encumber much of it expire. Instead of renewing existing leases or signing the land over to new lessees, the DHHL is embarking on a plan intended to give the land back to its original inhabitants – the wildlife, most especially Hawai’i’s native birds.
In December, the DHHL published a forest management plan and environmental assessment for four tracts, totaling 1,455 acres, in an area known as Piha Mauka. For the most part, the land fronts Keanakolu Road, generally mauka of the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge. If all goes as planned, by this summer, DHHL will begin an ambitious restoration effort that will continue until 2008.
An Avian Highway
One of the most significant aspects of the plan involves the rehabilitation of a flyway linking the Mauna Kea Forest Reserve with the Hakalau refuge. The 525-acre Kanakaleonui corridor runs along Nauhi Gulch on the south, connecting mid-elevation koa and ‘ohi’a at Hakalau to the mamane trees on the higher slopes.
Jack Jeffrey, a biologist with the refuge, sees this linkage as especially helpful in expanding the range of forest bird populations at Hakalau. Younger birds often have difficulty competing with their more experienced elders for food and nest sites, Jeffrey says, and this drives them to higher elevations in their quest for food. The corridor “provides a vital link between mesic koa forest and dry mamane forest,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Draft Revised Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Forest Birds, which ranks establishment of the corridor among its top priorities.
Mike Robinson, a forester and consultant to DHHL for the project, says Kanakaleonui contains “the best koa at high elevation.” Jay Nelson, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, describes the area as “very rich in wildlife resources.” Jeffery and other biologists, however, were hoping to get DHHL to set aside 2,000 acres for bird recovery; the area proposed by DHHL is further north and much smaller. But Robinson defends the selection of the Kanakaleonui tract, arguing that the density of koa already on the site will allow for quicker recovery of bird habitat. Jeffrey isn’t complaining. “We’ll take what we can get,” he says, commending the DHHL for their recent interest in restoration.
The project comes with a hefty price tag, but DHHL hopes to have it pay for itself. Revenue would be obtained from the sale of 50 percent of existing koa stands on all the tracts except Kanakaleonui. According to Robinson, whatever income is received from the koa sale will be plowed back into the forest management plan for such purposes as fencing, weed control, animal removal, and planting costs. Robinson would not estimate the amount of income he expects the project to generate, but did say that the DHHL is willing to help out if restoration costs turn out to exceed koa sales.
A Work in Progress
A little ways north of the Kanakaleonui parcel, the quiet of the forest is shattered by the loud buzz of a sawmill. At Waipunalei, the DHHL has contracted a logger to take “salvage” koa amounting to about 70 percent of the standing trees. Here the department hopes to test its idea that the native forest can be re-established through selective logging and removal of grazing animals, promoting koa regeneration from the existing seed bank.
The project began about a year ago, when the DHHL gave Stanford Logging Company rights to take marked trees from the Waipunalei area. Here, at a lower elevation where frost does not pose a problem for koa keiki, koa is denser than at the higher-elevation areas discussed in the Piha Mauka plan. Of the 30 percent of trees left uncut, most were of high economic value, Robinson says.
One of the inspirations for Robinson, he says, is what has occurred on a portion of the nearby Umikoa Ranch. Umikoa had been grazed and logged repeatedly for years until the mid-1990s, Robinson says. At that time, the decision was made to re-establish koa cover. Just a few years later, the land is now unrecognizable as pasture and supports thick stands of young koa.
Stepping Stones
The DHHL has already taken the first step toward forest restoration by deciding against continuing to lease the land for ranching. Between 1,000 and 1,500 head of cattle were rounded up last spring and summer. In February, a couple hundred more animals were taken out, leaving only a few dozen stragglers, which the former lessee, Freddy Nobriga, is supposed to remove by the end of this month. After that, professional hunters will go in to eliminate the last of the herd. Boundary fences, put up around 15 years ago, are still mostly intact and will be repaired where necessary before full restoration efforts are under way.
After the “salvage” koa logging, the land will be scarified with bulldozers in an effort to spur germination of buried koa seeds. Within a decade, the DHHL is hoping to see a koa forest grace the land. Robinson says he expects natural regeneration to result in 300 trees per acre two to three years after logging. If this density isn’t reached, he says, the DHHL will support hand-planting of koa seedlings. When it comes to restoring the mamane stands in the upper elevations of the Kanakaleonui tract, however, DHHL is leaving it all up to nature. In this area, grazing pressures have all but wiped out the mamane cover.
Robinson acknowledges that any eventual claim of success for the project will require sound, scientific documentation – something that the DHHL ‘s plans do not include. But, he says, the Piha Mauka project represents an ideal study site for research into restoration techniques, forest recovery, and effects of logging, and should be able to attract the interest of graduate students or agency researchers.
— Loretta Sherwood
Volume 14, Number 9 March 2004
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